1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display and a method for driving the same.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
With the development of information society, the demand for various types of display devices for displaying an image is increasing. Various flat panel displays, such as a liquid crystal display, a plasma display panel, and an organic light emitting diode (OLED) display, have been recently used. Out of the flat panel displays, the OLED display has excellent characteristics including a low voltage drive, a thin profile, a wide viewing angle, and a fast response time. Especially, an active matrix type OLED display for displaying an image on a plurality of pixels, which are arranged in a matrix form, has been widely used.
In the OLED display, a timing controller receives RGB data from a host system and supplies the RGB data to a data driving circuit. The timing controller receives timing signals, such as a clock and a data enable from the host system, and generates control signals for controlling each of the data driving circuit and a scan driving circuit. The control signals include (i) a scan timing control signal for controlling the scan driving circuit and (ii) a data timing control signal for controlling the data driving circuit. The data driving circuit converts the RGB data into a data voltage in response to the data timing control signal and outputs the data voltage to the data lines of a display panel of the OLED display. The scan driving circuit sequentially supplies a scan pulse synchronized with the data voltage to scan lines of the display panel in response to the scan timing control signal.
Even when the timing controller does not receive the RGB data from the host system, however, the timing controller generates the control signals for controlling the data driving circuit and the scan driving circuit. For example, the RGB data are not received from the host system when the host system does not receive digital video signal from an external component due to the turn-on or the turn-off of the display device. More specifically, even when the timing controller does not receive the RGB data from the host system and the OLED display displays a black image, the timing controller still generates the control signals. Accordingly, unnecessary power consumption is generated in the timing controller, the data driving circuit, and the scan driving circuit.